Crush3r, on 18 Jun 2006, 14:10, said:
Space isn't infinite. It's size has been determined: Diameter=14-15 bil ly. If you mean space by all the other infinite no. of parallel universes, then you could say it's infinite.
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No, that's the size of the
known universe, and its currently established age. We can't see further because the light hasn't had the chance to reach us yet.
Overdose, on 16 Jun 2006, 00:24, said:
I was discussing this with a friend of mine a few years ago, and we somewhat agreed that if the limit was crossed we'd just return to the opposing end. What if there were more universes? The human race might never fully explore ours and the thoughts of multiple universes is simply mind blowing.
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That's what's called the 'closed' model of the universe. Essentially spacetime itself is curved like a ball, which means that space 'wraps around' itself just like the surface of the earth does, but with an extra dimension.
Now, if the universe is infinite in both size and contents, this would break down a few fundamental laws of science. After all, if matter is infinite then energy is infinite. Which really breaks the whole 'conservation of energy' law, because if energy is infinite you can't even talk about the total amount of energy in a system. Infinite in amount also means infinite in supply, meaning that theoretically it would be possible to somehow infinitely extract energy from the universe and use it to power some kind of device. Which of course isn't possible, so by that reasoning the amount of energy in the universe is finite.
Another argument is of course the dilemma that if you spread infinite energy across infinite space, then how much energy is left per area?